The country is spellbound over the legal status of an armed civilian who stopped a late night robbery by a gun-wielding felon at a Houston taco shop. He shot the crook in the back several times killing him.
Some say it was too much force, just hit him in the leg or let him go out the door.
I say, "Illegal violence invites over-reaction". That is my legal thesis. And I hope courts, grand juries, and prosecutors adopt it.
First of all, the gun in this case turned out to be an inert replica. We can easily dispense with that "factor" as a non-factor. If I'm threatening with a shiny plastic sword over somebody's neck and it looks like it's the real thing, you'd be 100% within your rights to stop me by force. Including shooting me. You are not expected to do an instant analysis of whether my sword is fake if it looks real. Context is everything. Kids playing pirate is a different matter altogether. The replica-armed robber wasn't playing.
Implicit in his brandishing the gun were immediate deadly consequences for those who didn't submit to his criminal demands. He wasn't asking. He was telling.
Hit him in the leg? Wing him? No sir, it isn't reasonable to ask even a cop or soldier to be Annie Oakley with precision bullet placement in close quarters with a pistol. In fact, studies of home break-ins where the owner uses a firearm demonstrate time and again that usually the homeowner misses hitting the intruder. The "BOOM" is enough to scare off the bad guy nine times out of ten.
Let him go out the door? That didn't work at another Texas restaurant, namely in Killeen, where the gunman went from table to table executing the diners. How were the Houston diners to know the intentions and outcome of the gunman at the tacqueria? Is it reasonable for them to wait and see if they'll be put to death? No, the robber was armed, threatening force, stole their money one-by-one, and then when an opportunity afforded the good guy to take action, he put the putative lethal threat down.
Fine with me.
Yes, a human tragedy for one - the bad guy. And perhaps a lifetime of PTSD for the civilian shooter and the other customers and store employees.
Tragedies are bad. Nobody is happy about that aspect. It is a shame the robber had to be killed. He was somebody's son, and somebody is in pain over his loss. But a bunch of innocent people were secured by the doctrine of self-defense, even if there may have been over-reaction.
"Over-reaction" here is arguably the full emptying of the gun's magazine by the good guy civilian shooter at the perpetrator. Some critics even think the video of the incident shows an "execution" coup de grace discharge at the end of the incident.
However, think about it. This isn't a cop. It's a civilian. (By the way, cops are taught to shoot center mass - middle - of a perp, and to continue shooting until he is down and not moving.)
Also, he's in immediate fear of losing his life to the armed robber. As well as the sense of protecting those around him. All very rational, very human, very understandable reactions to a crisis not of his making. It was the criminal who started the sequence of events which led to his death.
It was the criminal who decided to enter the taco shop with a gun to frighten, intimidate, rob, and cause the victims to think he had an actual gun and was willing to use it. The criminal created the fact set. He set the terms. He assumed the risk. And he lost.
There was no crime by the defender who ended the robbery. His common sense and sensible reaction was triggered by a felonious and violent criminal act. Whether that reaction is small, medium, or large is the danger the criminal willingly bargained for, same as a snake wrestler who plays with rattlers. If he gets hurt, it's his fault.
